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Second son of a baron Jasper Hedges became a scholar and antiquarian, never marrying and pining for the one woman and the son he could never claim. When a tragic accident took the life of his brother John and sister-in-law Celia, Jasper became the guardian uncle to their offspring; including Anthony the son no one but he and Celia knew he fathered. As time went on, he devoted himself to ensuring that Anthony’s estates would be there when he gained his majority, never approving of the young man’s wild lifestyle or burdening him with the details of how badly the estates were in disrepair. When word came that Anthony was the lover of the infamous Countess/Authoress Marina Wyatt, Jasper was more than willing to attend one of the Lady’s private dinners to gauge whether the rumors were true. Countess Marina Wyatt was a private woman beneath the rumored gossips of her many lovers. Marina actually encouraged the gossip as it helped enormously in selling her popular novels. When her friend Anthony spoke of bringing his doddering old uncle to her dinner party, Marina was not prepared for the handsome scholarly fellow whom she had noticed earlier that day in a museum. Neither, was she prepared for the instant attraction and passionate response of her body. Marina and Jasper agreed to a clandestine love affair that would last through the ton’s season, but neither expected the love to blossom between two such diverse personalities or the secrets that if revealed would tear them apart. *** While the majority of the story is set in 1829 the author sets the wheels in motion so to speak giving a great deal of background and motivation to Jasper’s character which is a big part of what is to come in the way Jasper has dealt with his niece and nephew/son. His guilt, and his love and devotion are brilliantly laid out with meticulous writing by Ms. Rosenthal. Jasper’s relationship with his nephew/son is complicated, primarily because he had wished Anthony would have been more like him and responsible, rather than the handsome Corinthian without a care in the world. When the rumors hit that he was lovers with the somewhat scandalous Lady Gorham, Jasper was induced to forego his habitual retiring self to attend and ascertain Anthony’s involvement with the Countess. What was unique about Jasper was that while he was still a handsome ‘older’ man, he was not one of the crisp magnificently turned out suave heroes one usually finds, but slightly wrinkled with ink stains on his cuffs. Jasper was the total opposite of the glamorous fashion icon who although she is thirty-six and not an innocent young ingénue, was someone who had to actually watch what she eats to maintain her body to impress. (I really liked that about this heroine – she actually has to diet! Bless you Ms. Rosenthal for creating a real woman!) Rosenthal puts the steam in the sensuality between Jasper and Marina in a beautifully sexy story, while maintaining her usual elegance in prose. She also slips in a lovely little secondary romance between Anthony and Sydney’s governess, Miss Hobart who is such an “exceptional superior person”. I also loved the way she created Sydney as a smaller version of a bluestocking unlike the cutesy children that are usually inserted in these stories for humor or such. Bottom line is that with THE EDGE OF IMPROPRIETY, the reader is going to get a sizzling sensual tale with the most elegant of prose which I’ve found to be a trademark of this remarkable author’s writing skills.
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THE EDGE OF IMPROPRIETY
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